According to my quick research, the main cop in the George Floyd incident was fired the day after the incident and charged 4 days later

The difference with the Floyd case though is that there was a crowd and witnesses that took video. There was no way of suppressing it. I think it would have been easy here to bury the video (or lose it, or say something malfunctioned) and stick by the initial police report of the incident.

Drone attack in Iran and Twitter is saying multiple places. No idea how big of an attack though.

Speculation is Israel. Wouldn’t think US would be that direct?

More to come.

Attacks large enough to register a 5 on the Richter scale. Holy crap.

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There is fighting going on near Iran's nuclear center.

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I believe that is a naturally occurring earthquake.

I don’t know if this is the right plan but it’s reassuring to know we are thinking new ways re: future conflicts vs China instead of rinse-and-repeat stuff.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64294915

This is all stuff that was being discussed for our armed forces when I was in. Tanks just haven't really been useful for us since the first gulf war. With drones, long range missile systems, and air superiority foot soldiers aren't as necessary either. They're really needed for securing areas we've already hit and for special operations. Helo's are just too easy to take down.

What DeSantis is doing to public education in Florida is scary when you think about him as a potential President.

Western Civilization courses are mandatory and diversity classes are now banned. He's also taken over a public liberal arts college by replacing the board, firing the president, and replacing her with someone far more conservative. All in the name of "academic freedom"

Not to mention the war he started with The College Board over the African American Studies course that he pressured them to change and they did.

It's funny, for a group of people who says the government is in too many people's lives, they want to dictate what schools can teach even at the college level. All in the name of "anti-woke" or something.

"Let's start treating each other with respect. That's what Kevin and I are going to do. Not a joke, we had a good meeting yesterday," Biden at prayer breakfast says of @SpeakerMcCarthy. "It doesn't mean we've got to agree. Fight like hell. But let's treat each other with respect" pic.twitter.com/8aJp3nrtt0

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) February 2, 2023

Biden's political superpower is that his image is so normal and moderate that people assume he's always the most reasonable guy in the room.

If Biden and McCarthy meet and both come out of the meeting saying that the other one is being unreasonable, people are going to assume that Biden is the one being reasonable--without any real regard to the actual reasonableness of their positions--because McCarthy has thrown his lot in with actual crazy people.

Like, when Biden says that he and Kevin (side note--love the use of first name there) are treating each other with respect, that actually hurts McCarthy with his base. But if he tries to push back against that--"Actually, I didn't treat the President with respect"--he loses moderates.

Random observation, I noticed my conservative brother saying "Biden administration", a lot blaming it for this and that, like how he's boycotting Amazon because Whole Foods stopped buying non-sustainable lobster from Maine fisherman, hurting their livelihood, which was all the fault of the "Biden administration" for reasons I didn't try to grasp. But I did notice he kept using that term.

Then I was in a Lyft yesterday going to the airport in Las Vegas, and the driver had on conservative talk radio, which kept blaming the "Biden administration" for this and that. It stood out. I'm pretty sure that with Obama was president it was just "Obama" destroying America and so forth. I wonder if this is an intentional difference and what is behind it. Maybe the idea is that Biden isn't villainous enough because he's too old to be an evil mastermind, so it's more an evil administration?

Heard him speak at the prayer breakfast today on the radio. He sounded great. Totally clear and coherent. Making jokes while getting the message across. Of course he isnt as sharp as he was, but it really irritates me the way the right tries to paint him as a drooling invalid who eats pudding all day.

But what about "The Biden Crime Family"

I think that you are spot on. Obama was a black guy who's middle name is Hussain. He was the bad guy.

Biden is an old white guy who like ice cream. Hard to hate. You need to say "administration" to get in all of the queers and non-whites that are really running the country Weekend-At-Bernie's style.

There is a reason why you haven’t heard nearly as much impeach Biden. They know or doesn’t sell. It’s why they are going after Myorkis now. Much more foreign sounding name. It’s also why they attacked mayor Pete following the southwest debacle.

Those people don't believe Biden is actually running anything anyway. He's a puppet and his "administration" is really running everything. He's not competent enough to do anything, is at fault for everything, because he's not good enough to know better, and is taking credit for things he's not doing.

Basically the opposite of trump, who was fully in charge of everything, not responsible for anything, and was fighting anyone in his administration who wasn't doing it his way.

Yeah, that is what I was going to post until I saw yours. Most people I talk to on the Right think Biden is just a senile incompetent old man. Plus, they love demonizing VP Harris as the real person running the show. A black woman? It must be her destroying everything.

This is spot-on. Republicans have mostly given up on policy stuff. They don't tout anything. It's all about the person.

Obama is black with a foreign sounding name. Hillary is a woman. They are thus evil because of that.

Biden on the other hand is like you said, an old white guy who likes ice cream and fast cars. He's basically their ideal American. It's why I think someone like Mark Kelly would be impossible for them to beat.

This too. Biden is a likable guy so you have to act like he's not really in charge of anything.

And somehow in 1984 Democrats thought Walter Mondale was a better idea than John Glenn...

Yeah baby, com’on back to the fold. Who needs TPP when we’ve got bases (and ANKUS), the better option. Right thing to do Bong Bong, don’t care if your dad was Marcos. Children shouldn’t be held accountable for sins of their parents.

Philippines is a country that we should target to build up militarily and economically. There’s some negative history there but for the most part the Philippines people like and prefer US over China.

Joe, drop Kamala and take Blinken (or Lloyd Austin?) as your VP.

So I guess this is where we're at.

SCOTUS held that gun restrictions are only constitutional if they have historical analogues from 1791 or 1868. But domestic violence was widely accepted in those eras. So, the 5th Circuit says, the government can't disarm alleged domestic abusers today. https://t.co/OMXrJ7jGE3

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) February 2, 2023

I hope they fast track appeal this to SCOTUS.

Interesting to see the ‘final’ outcome

This is pretty concerning and not getting enough press:

John Roberts' Wife Allegations Spark Call for Supreme Court Scrutiny

The Chief Justice’s wife is being paid into the six-figures a pop by law firms to recruit attorneys. Isn’t this exactly the type of thing the GOP is frothing at the mouth over with Hunter Biden? Only it is clear and easily provable right now?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...-labor-market/

If I were the GOP, I'd be focusing on social issues, too. Reality isn't being too kind to their economic arguments.

The history of Democratic Party electoral choices is a varied and idiotic story.

I'm sure its all made-up by the Biden Administration/leftist media to make him look good...

If gun restrictions can only have analogs to 1791 or 1868, does that mean that only guns available in those years can subject to 2nd amendment protections? :D

Fox spent the last couple of days getting their viewers excited for a bad jobs report that released this morning. Then they glossed over it and quickly moved on when it reported 517k jobs added and the lowest unemployment rate since 1969.

We need a left leaning state to try it just to put an end to this madness.

If we use the rationale that "if the Founding Fathers didn't care about it, we don't have to, either"...does that mean I can stop paying income taxes?

I'm confused by this balloon. Surely China has spy satellites capable of seeing everything anyway. What is the point of the balloon?

Someone suggested they might want to see how we shot it down.

Apparently Fox News posted some breaking news and a [fake] video of the "balloon" exploding over Montana about an hour ago. But people are tracking it across the midwest and at about 6pm CT it was in western KY and earlier had crossed over St. Louis.

WTF is Fox doing?

Probably probing our early warning system which apparently failed as this was first seen by civilians.

This makes a scary amount of sense to me, which is probably why we aren’t shooting it down (we are scared of debris in middle of nowhere Montana, really?)

They have probably already got a bunch of data about how we will react, how the public reacts, who and what is involved in the response, but yeah no need to give them any more. Probably next time it will be something that could be weaponized and see how the response differs.

First reported by civilians. I don’t think that the Pentagon is in the habit of truthfully telling the world what it can and can’t and did and didn’t detect.

(Though it is a good reminder of the reasons we all voted against Trump. If he were still President, he’d have felt personally embarrassed by the insinuation that he didn’t know what was happening, so he’d have given a press conference revealing all of the Top Secret stuff that military leaders told him in their “Don’t worry about the balloon, Sir” briefing).

I was not aware that NORAD made public every potential threat it detected, besides Santa.

Apparantly the balloon has made its way to the Myrtle Beach area-the FAA has issued a ground stop for the airport because of it

I imagine our military guys are telling their military guys that they really need to try and hide their spy balloons better. When they make them so obvious that even civilians can see them, it makes our whole Neo Cold War a lot more difficult to manage.

Goodbye Iowa, Hello South Carolina!

Good-bye Iowa! Democrats approve Biden's revamped primary calendar

If I were to design a system of primary voting order, first I would create 50 voting day "slots" and scatter them across the primary calendar, one date can have more than one slot if you want to preserve days such as "Super Tuesday". Then I would take the states and rank them by voter turnout in the previous presidential election. And then those states one by one would get to pick which slot their primary is. I think states who encourage voter turnout should be rewarded.

Also this is a depressing reminder that the next election is right around the corner. But at least this time I probably won't have to see stupid ads of Tim Ryan throwing footballs at TVs

This signals to me Biden is serious about a run. Curious if the party will rally around him, or if any alternate candidates come to the forefront. I think it is the former.

Despite the right wing echo chamber he's done a good job and while not as spry as he once was he isn't the brain dead fool the right portrays him as.

I turned the news over to Fox and they were broadcasting live with the balloon right over us here in Surfside Beach. So fair warning if I start turning into a mutant or get super powers :)

I can't see anyone primarying Biden if he chooses to run unless it was a Trumpy sort of person. It would cause fractions within the party and would certainly lead to a Republican victory.

I agree, but given he didn't do well in Iowa or NH last cycle I think they want to start in SC so there is a perceived show of strength. Both to deter any others from running and to broadcast he is a force to be reckoned with in the general.

That, and the 2020 Iowa Caucuses were a disaster that they never want to repeat.

I can see the Fox headlines now.

"Biden fails to deter Chinese and state forced to down Spy balloon that terrorized a nation, on its OWN, before it fled the country! Impeach Biden!"

I think a good percentage of the Democratic party was tired of the first two states having electorates that come nowhere near mirroring national party membership and the tire fire in Iowa last time around gave them an excuse to finally make the change.

Biden has exceeded my overall expectations (not stumbling too much, bipartisan deals, foreign policy, and especially vs China) and stands the best chance of beating Trump, so I do want him to run again (unless he significantly declines).

I would strongly prefer another VP though as the backup, Kamala does not fill me with confidence.

It would be good for Biden to delay formally announcing until the very last minute just to see how Trump is doing in the GOP.